GARTON, Henry (c.1600-41), of Woolavington, Suss. and the Middle Temple.

The Garton family’s origins lay in London, but in the early sixteenth century they settled in Billingshurst in Sussex, following the marriage of William Garton (d. 1566) into the Stapley family of Framfield. Garton quickly established himself among the gentry, and his son Francis (d. 1604) was three times mayor of Arundel, while another son, Giles (grandfather of our MP), made a fortune from the iron industry, and became master of the Ironmongers’ Company (1586). By the late sixteenth century the family had acquired an enormous estate to the north west of Arundel comprising the manors of Woolavington, Graffham, and East Dean, which were purchased (for over £7,000) from Lord Lumley, executor to Henry FitzAlan, 19th earl of Arundel.18Vis. Suss. (Harl. Soc. liii), 131-2; W. Suss. RO, Lavington MSS 7-15, 18, 149, 227-31; C54/1032; C142/236/102; Suss. Manors, i. 142; ii. 501. The borough of Arundel and the Howard family, who held the earldom from 1580, provided the basis for Henry Garton’s political career in the seventeenth century.

His father made a prestigious marriage into the Shirleys of Isfield, one of the most powerful gentry families in the county prior to the civil war. When Sir Peter Garton died in 1606, he left property to each of his five sons, and portions of 1,000 marks each to his four daughters, as well as ‘40,000 cords of wood’, presumably destined for the iron works.19W. Suss. RO, Lavington MSS 26, 95, 220; C142/292/165; C142/307/1; PROB11/109/296. Judith, his widow and executrix, outlived many of her children, dying in December 1641, but the management of the estate passed first to her cousin, Sir Thomas Pelham†, and her brother Sir John Shurley†, who purchased the wardship of her eldest son Thomas.20W. Suss. RO, Lavington MS 205; WARD9/162, f. 3v.

Like Thomas (knighted in April 1618, shortly before his death), Henry Garton went from Queen’s College, Oxford to the Middle Temple.21Al. Ox.; C142/375/56; W. Suss. RO, Lavington MS 44. His admission to the latter in October 1618 was effected at the request of his uncle, Sir George Shirley, a master of the bench (and lord chief justice of Ireland), who was his long-standing patron; Garton shared the chambers of his cousin, Robert Shirley.22MT Admiss. i. 85, 101, 109; MTR, ii. 632, 680, 701, 714, 757, 761, 767, 782, 786, 803. 916; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 742. Garton was called to the bar in 1626. The Middle Temple provided both his London home for the rest of his life, and some of his abiding personal contacts, but in 1627 he also acquired the Sussex manor of Peakdean.23Suss. Manors, ii. 342. Following the death of his elder brother Robert in the summer of 1633 he inherited the estates of Woolavington and Graffham.24Add. 39415A, ff. 27-27v; C142/720/7; W. Suss. RO, Lavington MSS 48, 49, 245, 248, 285-6, 288, 307, 562; Suss. Manors, ii. 502; PROB11/164/467 (Robert Garton).

A year later Garton’s position was further bolstered by his marriage to Mary, the young daughter and heiress of the well-connected Hertfordshire gentleman Sir John Luke†, a former member of the Middle Temple.25Flamsted, Herts. par. reg.; HP Commons 1604-1629. About 1637, with his sister’s husband Edward Hanchett of Uphall, Braughing, also in Hertfordshire, Garton was assigned the post of usher in the court of wards by the financially-embarrassed Sir Thomas Farnefold*, allegedly in return for £6,000.26PC2/53, f. 11. Following Mary’s death, on 9 April 1640 he married Dorothy, daughter of another former Middle Templar Sir William Whitmore†, an extremely wealthy business associate of Sir Arthur Ingram* who had been a supporter of the feoffees for impropriations.27St John at Hackney par. reg.; C142/616/24. Dorothy’s brother Thomas Whitmore II* thereby joined the equally godly Sir William Ellyot* in the ranks of Garton’s brothers-in-law with a Middle Temple affiliation.

Nevertheless, by the late 1630s Garton had entered the orbit of the Catholic Thomas Howard, 14th or 21st earl of Arundel. He was the Howards’ candidate when in the spring of 1640 a by-election was called at the borough of Arundel to choose a replacement for the earl’s son, Henry Howard*, who as Lord Maltravers had been summoned to the Upper House. The writ was only issued on 25 April, and Garton was not returned until 4 May, so it is unclear whether he played any part in the work of the House before Parliament was dissolved 11 days later.28C231/5, p. 382; CJ ii. 10a; HMC 4th Rep. 26.

The earl’s patronage presumably allowed Garton to retain the seat at Arundel in the autumn, when he was returned with a future royalist, Sir Edward Alford*.29C219/42ii/38. The election was challenged by Edward Sackville, the younger son of Edward Sackville†, 4th earl of Dorset, but this left no trace either in the Journal or in private diary entries at the time, and although there is retrospective evidence that it was on the agenda of the committee of privileges in January 1641, it did not otherwise surface in Garton’s lifetime.30D’Ewes (C), 126; CJ ii. 313a. Whatever the precise state of the case in the early months of the Long Parliament, a dispute may help to explain why Garton first appeared in proceedings on 30 March 1641, heading the list of those named to a committee considering a bill to address disorders in elections.31CJ ii. 114a.

One motive for Garton’s seeking membership of the House may have been the legal protection and the platform for promoting causes which it bestowed. In October 1640 the privy council had considered, and referred on to the attorney-general, a petition from Sir Thomas Farnefold, also subsequently elected to Parliament, who claimed that Garton and his partner Hanchett had failed to pay the £6,000 that had been agreed for the wards post.32PC2/53, f. 11. By January 1641 it was clear that Garton also faced complaints from some of those prosecuted during his tenure.33HMC 4th Rep. 40. On 6 February the Commons, having heard that Sir David Watkins, Farnefold’s major creditor, had been detained for arresting Hanchett, overturned the imprisonment and dismissed Hanchett’s claims to privilege.34CJ ii. 80a.. But when Watkins served an injunction on Garton, and detained one of his servants, on 3 April the Commons resolved to question Watkins on the apparent breach of privilege, although they decided against sending for him as a delinquent.35CJ ii. 115b; Procs. LP iii. 360, 362, 364. The matter of the injunction was ‘again agitated’ three days later, but consideration of it was ‘put off until another time’ and then seems to have sunk beneath other business.36Procs. LP iii. 415.

Garton made the Protestation on 8 May, five days after it was first introuced in the House.37CJ ii. 141a. It was his last appearance in the Journal. On 16 August he was added to the Sussex commission of the peace, possibly on account of perceived sympathy with royal policies.38C142/616/24. However, by the time Parliament returned on 20 October from an autumn recess, he may already have been mortally ill. A victim of plague, he died in his chambers at the Middle Temple on 29 October, and was interred in its church the next day.39Harl. 382, f. 101; Reg. of Burials at the Temple Church ed. H. G. Woods (1905), 5. Perhaps unsurprisingly, he died intestate; administration of his goods was granted to Hanchett on 2 December.40Add. 39481, ff. 45, 51

On 1 November the Commons debated whether to issue a new writ, in view of the claims of Edward Sackville.41D’Ewes (C), 60. These claims having been ruled invalid (12 Nov.), the writ was duly ordered (16 Nov.).42CJ ii. 313a; D’Ewes (C), 126; C231/5, p. 488. It took longer for Garton’s widow to secure the wardship of her infant son and only child, but this was accomplished by 26 May 1642; in her will seven years later she acknowledged the agency of ‘King Charles of blessed memory’, but Hanchett’s assistance in the wards may also have been material.43PROB11/210/38; PROB11/210/40. The estate was valued at between £1,200 and £1,500 per annum, and there were also debts of £2,000 owing. After Dorothy Garton’s death in August 1649 the wardship passed, as she had wished, to her brother, Richard Whitmore, whose accounts survive. In 1662, when William Garton came of age, he was declared a lunatic, and Whitmore presumably retained control of an estate which had become encumbered by debts and legacies amounting to at least £12,000 by 1672.44Reg. of Burials at the Temple Church, 8; WARD 9/220, f. 55; PROB 11/210/38; PROB11/210/40; C7/497/100; C142/778/152; E101/528/8; C5/577/24. Whitmores continued to appear in Parliament.45HP Commons 1660-1690.